The best laid plans...

BUY:

€35 taxi

€10 beer

€220 Eurostar ticket

€104 Deutsche Bahn ticket

WHY?



Having spent the better part of 2010 sending other people around the world on amazing holidays, 17 December marked the beginning of my own. After all the planning and saving during the preceding months, I don’t think I have been more excited for a holiday. In large part because I knew I would enjoy myself, catching up with friends dearly missed and meeting my niece (as well as three weeks out of the office) but, if I am honest, also as a result of my savings regime. The stash of cash readily available to me was incredibly liberating. I have never not left Australia on the back of my credit card!



Brussels

 But clearly the universe wanted me to work hard for my long-earned break! In the industry we always joke that it’s your own bookings you stuff up - like when my colleague booked himself on a different flight to his family - and while almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong for me, luckily none of it was my fault.

I checked in for my flight to London, regaling the lady at the desk with insider travel tales in the hope of charming my way towards the pointy end of the plane (which failed), with no idea that I was flying towards a snowstorm, the likes of which the UK had not seen in about 100 years.


View from train between Frankfurt
and Brussels

 Happily watching the in-flight entertainment and sipping on my vodka sodas, for 23 hours I remained blissfully unaware of the road closures, train delays and general carnage being reaped by three inches of snow at my destination. At about the time I was anticipating being told to prepare for landing, the captain came over the intercom to advise that Heathrow was closed and we were being diverted to Frankfurt. This initial briefing suggested it was only for a few hours but 5 hours on the tarmac suggested otherwise and it really was no surprise when it was finally confirmed that we would be overnighting in Germany. While disappointed, I figured the dinner party I was to attend would go on, even without the guest of honour. And really, diversions like this actually add to the sense of adventure, particularly when I’m not footing the bill! Well, the exhausted mother of three sitting opposite me probably disagreed though. Not one of her brood had slept during the trip and a confirmed delay of at least 12 hours before she could pass the brats off to their father brought tears to her already red and tired eyes.

After a short yet comfortable sleep I was woken by an uncomfortably early morning call to prepare for the hour bus trip back to the airport. Unnecessarily as it turned out. Heathrow was to be closed for another 3 days. Despite promises of free food and a warm bed I had no intention of remaining in Frankfurt, even if their Christmas market is one of the best in Europe. Somewhat wiser about the German rail system but €350 poorer, the next stage of my adventure began.



With train tickets to London, via Brussels, firmly in hand I naively thought I was sorted. Sharing a beer with fellow divertees at Frankfurt Central and a few more en route, we had no idea what waited for us at the Eurostar terminal. I mean only I was clever enough to sort out an alternate route to London, wasn’t I? It never crossed my mind that other stranded passengers, far from home, would be as determined as me in reaching their goal or that the weather would again wreak havoc on my travel plans.



My €220 Eurostar seat

However, after 50 hours of travel by plane, train and automobile, through two countries and with only a 50.5km tunnel between me and London, I was not waiting another day to meet my niece and nothing was going to stop me getting to English soil that night. Not the thousand or so passengers on the cancelled train before mine who were given the thousand or so seats on my train. Not even the officious-looking ticket collector nor the lack of a seat. Well, maybe the ticket collector. Luckily he was an officious-looking but understanding ticket collector and as I folded down my seat amongst the baggage racks between the carriages I sent him, his family and any future offspring very heartfelt thanks and blessings for the season. In spite of myself, I then fell into an exhausted but comforted sleep, relieved I’d be in England when I awoke but relatively unworried that it had taken me a total 60 hours and an extra, unanticipated €350 or so!